A Meteorologist Responds to the Claim That Winter Storms Mean Climate Change

A winter storm has been hammering the Northeast, while even states like Florida are experiencing much colder weather than normal. What’s going on? Is this extreme winter evidence for climate change – or just part of the normal weather cycle?

Meteorologist and weather forecaster Joe Bastardi of WeatherBell.com talked about weather patterns and this year’s unusually cold winter with Pat and Jeffy on today’s show. His analysis is a stark contrast to climate change activists’ scare tactics. Listen to the clip (above) to hear him combat various arguments tying cold winter weather to global warming.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

PAT: Pat Gray and Jeffy for Glenn. Be back Monday morning. 888-727-BECK.

Looks like another cold weekend for much of the country. They just got a huge storm. And now cold front coming in behind that. So it's going to be very pleasant. And this is all, of course, due to global warming.

JEFFY: Thank you.

PAT: Once again, it's gotten so hot, that it's spun clear around to cold, or something.

JEFFY: I think that's exactly -- that's exactly it.

PAT: Michael Mann -- Gore just linked to one of his organization's articles on the brutal winter weather. And it was written by Michael Mann. The climate reality project. A perfect storm, extreme winter weather, bitter cold, and climate change.

It's just -- it's phenomenal to me that because just a few years ago, they were saying we weren't going to have snow and cold anymore. The winters were going to be completely different. You were going to have to remind your children what snow was. So that meant global warming. And now the opposite means global warming.

So we decided to get meteorologist Joe Bastardi on to talk about this. Joe, welcome to the Glenn Beck Program with Pat and Jeffy.

JOE: It is always an extreme pleasure to talk to you gentlemen.

PAT: The pleasure is ours. You know, you're quoted pretty prominently tweeted in this article, and you're talking about the insanity it is. It's virtually witchcraft at this point.

JOE: Let me just say something, okay? We set this up -- it's amazing that sometimes when the atmosphere gets into a flow, very similar to previous years, all right? So we set up the cold -- David and my clients first, and then our subscribers on premium at weatherBELL.com, if you want to go there, and then I showed it to the public, I said, here is what you are to expect, based on similar patterns in the past. That we would get off to a big fast start to the winter.

In fact, on November 30th, I wrote an article in the Patriot Post saying that the cold that was coming could put the skids on the economic recovery that we were in.

And I'm not saying that this is directly attracted to it. But I noticed that job creation was a lot less in December. And maybe the amount of cold -- I'm not saying it's directly linked. These guys will have to figure it out.

But remember how cold it got in Texas. It snowed December 7th through the 15th and then all of this is coming now.

But the point is, we were forecasting this before.

Now, here's what you have to believe. I want everybody to just calm down. And this is what you got to believe.

PAT: Uh-huh.

JEFFY: That the cold that is coming now, that was seen and predicted due to the physical forcing of the atmosphere, similar to other years, that cold that is here now is climate change.

But because it's not quite as cold as some of the outbreaks like 1983 and '84, that's also climate change.

JEFFY: Right.

PAT: So here's what happened: It got very cold because of climate change, but not quite as cold as it would have gotten, if we didn't have climate --

PAT: It's preposterous.

JOE: I can't even believe it. And, you know what gets me, guys? The certain large-scale physical forcing that's going on right now, it's going to lead to a mammoth thaw. All right. We see it starting in the Indian oceans, all right. What's going on? Big thunderstorms go up there, decide that the pattern is going to change. It's going to get very mild across the United States.

You mark my words. If we see some record-breaking highs like we did in 1967, after the brutally cold start in January '67. We had record-breaking highs at two weeks off. They will say, see, this is climate change. And yet none of them are even looking at what I'm looking at now.

It's the same thing with Harvey. When everybody was -- you know, about the Eclipse on August 21st, I'm sitting there warning my clients and putting it out on Twitter, that this is a disaster coming for Texas.

Harvey wasn't even upgraded to a depression at that time. And the very feature that captured Harvey was an anomalous cold trough that dug into Texas in response to patterns that had been setting up.

So here's what I do: I do what my dad taught me. My dad is a meteorologist, graduated out of A&M in '65. And he's -- you go back and look at what happened before and understand what happened before.

It's no different than American history or history of the world or anything like that. You do it in the weather. You will have an advantage on looking going forward.

And what I think is going on now, and I call it climate ambulance chasing, is a perfect storm. It's a perfect storm, all right, of Alinski tactics and Orwellian-type ideas about erase the past. And those that want to remind you of the past, you isolate, demonize, and destroy them. It's political. It's agenda-driven.

PAT: Absolutely.

JOE: If it was science-driven -- look, I have a lot of good friends on the other side of the argument. We sit down. We have a couple of glasses of wine, or whatever. And that's that. It's a 10-minute talk. You disagree, I disagree. Let's go watch it. That's that.

Most of those guys, meteorologists, a lot of them don't agree with me.

But on the other side, they say, okay. Well, we'll see how it turns out.

The other side -- when you got zealots that are involved -- and think about this.

Every day, folks, I have to fight the weather.

So every day I'm confronted, I get beat. Okay. There are times I get beat, and I remember my losses. But I learned that when you're dealing with nature, an infinite and relentless opponent, the majesty of nature, the best you can get is a tie. You forecast what's going to happen. It happens. Many times, it doesn't.

So you get up and fight every day. No one is ever going to take the weather away from me. What happens if 30 years of your life and everything that you are associated with, that is your lifeline, what happens if that's proven wrong? It has to be very, very difficult for someone on that side of the issue that has just staked his claim to that.

PAT: Yes.

JOE: To actually look at it objectively. And in addition, it is a due considerate, an attack on them personally.

JEFFY: It sure is.

JOE: Because after all, they've personalized the entire issue. So it's a very difficult playing field. And it's the kind of thing that I really think that -- you know, I have the so what attitude. If it is warming, okay? Whatever the cause, I have to deal with it and make the forecast from it.

I personally believe it's because of the cyclical nature of the oceans, more water vapor in the air. Excess water vapor in the Arctic regions affects the air temperature much, much more than it does in other places.

That's why we have these ratios, what we call mixing ratio charts, where you look at temperature and water vapor and the amount of water vapor contained in that certain temperatures in the air.

Now, we don't have mixing ratio charts for -- for CL2 temperature. Because it's no relationship.

PAT: Uh-huh.

JOE: So how is it that you're creating CO2 as a climate control knob, when there's no visible relationship that a meteorologist or anybody can use, as far as, well, what if we inject this much CO2 into the system, what will the temperature do? It won't do anything.

It's not detectable. That's why -- do you realize when you're sitting in an enclosed arena for two hours, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air goes up to 10,000 parts per million?

If you understand that, that what's going on while you're in there, people aren't falling over. You know why? Because you exhale 100 times more carbon dioxide than you inhale.

And that's the other interesting thing. I believe strongly in our Heavenly Father, okay? I have to ask myself this question, for some people on the other side of the issue that have the same feelings as me as that, why would animals be created to exhale 100 times more CO2 than they inhale?

Okay? Isn't that just a suicide pact, okay? Whoever started all this?

The reason is because plants love this stuff. And that's why the Earth is greener than it's ever been in the satellite era. And we are growing foods.

You see the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is actually helping out with food production. So there's a lot of moving parts here. But it simply comes down to, you've got to ask yourself, why would you believe someone that three weeks before didn't tell us this was coming, waits till it comes, and then tell yous you after, as opposed to people that are out in front of it.

PAT: Yeah. And everything that happened, they predicted, even though years ago they predicted the opposite. They don't -- they don't mention that at all.

JOE: No. Of course not. Again, it gets to Orwellian ideas.

Have you guys ever seen the movie Bananas?

JEFFY: A long time ago.

JOE: Okay. There's a fantastic scene in there, where they're flying troops into this banana republic that this movie is based on. And there's a bunch of troops on one side. A bunch of troops on the other side. And they're all American troops. They say, whose side are you fighting for?

One guy goes, well, we're on the rebel side.

He goes, well, we're on the other side.

And someone says, the State Department is taking no chances. We're covering both sides.

It's the same thing that these guys do. It's no matter what happens, they have the right answer.

If it snows cheese in Dallas in a week, if it's a cheese storm, there it is, it's climate change.

PAT: It's what we said was going to happen.

Yep. There's just no doubt about it. And in An Inconvenient Truth, the original version, Al Gore said there were more frequent and intense hurricanes on the way, followed by 12 years of less frequent and less intense storms. We didn't have a major hurricane during that time for something like ten or 12 years.

JOE: Yeah. You know what, though, here's -- we really -- and I -- look, I know this sounds pompous. If you follow me on WeatherBELL or if you follow me on Twitter, you saw these explanations before the fact. It's why I predicted this year that we were going to end the major drought because we were in a pattern that happened before.

And part of -- listen. Part of -- I had this theory that the distortion of where it's getting warm, it's getting warmer in the arctic areas, it's getting warmer basically where people don't live.

PAT: Yeah.

JOE: When we say warm in the Arctic, it's during their winter. The summers aren't increasing. It's the winters that are increasing because more water vapor in the air means that you have more cloud cover.

So it warms 4 or 5 degrees Celsius. That gets -- so instead of being unbelievably cold, it's unbelievably cold.

I mean, it's crazy cold up there no matter what.

So what happens to this though? That decreases something. Everybody sit down. Called Zonal Potential Energy. What is Zonal Potential Energy?

It's what drives the extremeties of the atmosphere. The difference between the cold in the North and the warm in the South, if you lessen that gradient, if you lessen that gradient, inherently, there will be less extremes.

I think that this also has an effect on the global wind oscillation and mean sea level pressures in the atmosphere, especially over land and during the summertime, which is distorting the -- the tropics and actually leading to a downturn in the ACE Index. And that's what you've been seeing. Accumulate cyclonic energy globally.

While we had this big season here, guys, guess what? It was the bottom five in the western Pacific. And, in fact, what I did was, I went back and linked 1933, 1950, 1995, 2005, 2010, all those years with similar tropical seasons. And, bang, it gave you the December forecast.

Because there was a hemisphere pattern set up similar in the summertime that would naturally evolve, that way into the winter.

PAT: Wow.

JOE: But here's the thing to take away: Look at what I'm looking at. Understand that I'm looking at the past, not erasing the past. And it's aiding me in doing what I'm doing.

So in a way -- what I think every climatologist should be made to forecast the weather, in the longer range, three to six weeks. I want you to do that for a year. Just practice on your own. And you will understand the inherent chaos in the system that will make you at least stop and think, well, maybe there is something different than what I'm pushing.

PAT: I love it.

WeatherBELL.com. Is that where people go to hear more? Learn more?

JOE: Yeah. That's our site.

PAT: Okay.

JOE: Now, not everybody at weatherBELL.com is like that. You know, we have a free and open company. We get into discussions that last five minutes. Then we go to the weather. That's what we do.

But I'm also @bigJoeBastardi on Twitter. I'm supposed to every time I'm on the air mention that or something. I don't know. Get some followers. So -- hey, listen, I appreciate you guys having me on. I love coming on.

PAT: Yeah. We love to have you. Appreciate it.

JOE: Anytime, you want. I'm back. Remember something: No matter what the weather, enjoy the weather, it's the only weather you've got.

PAT: Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it.

JEFFY: Thank you. Just ends nicely. Beautiful.

PAT: See, just ends nicely. Just ends nicely. Joe Bastardi. 888-727-BECK.

As President Trump approaches his 100th day in office, Glenn Beck joined him to evaluate his administration’s progress with a gripping new interview. April 30th is President Trump's 100th day in office, and what an eventful few months it has been. To commemorate this milestone, Glenn Beck was invited to the White House for an exclusive interview with the President.

Their conversation covered critical topics, including the border crisis, DOGE updates, the revival of the U.S. energy sector, AI advancements, and more. Trump remains energized, acutely aware of the nation’s challenges, and determined to address them.

Here are the top five takeaways from Glenn Beck’s one-on-one with President Trump:

Border Security and Cartels

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Early in the interview, Glenn asked if Trump views Mexico as a failed narco-state. While Trump avoided the term, he acknowledged that cartels effectively control Mexico. He noted that while not all Mexican officials are corrupt, those who are honest fear severe repercussions for opposing the cartels.

Trump was unsurprised when Glenn cited evidence that cartels are using Pentagon-supplied weapons intended for the Mexican military. He is also aware of the fentanyl influx from China through Mexico and is committed to stopping the torrent of the dangerous narcotic. Trump revealed that he has offered military aid to Mexico to combat the cartels, but these offers have been repeatedly declined. While significant progress has been made in securing the border, Trump emphasized that more must be done.

American Energy Revival

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Trump’s tariffs are driving jobs back to America, with the AI sector showing immense growth potential. He explained that future AI systems require massive, costly complexes with significant electricity demands. China is outpacing the U.S. in building power plants to support AI development, threatening America’s technological leadership.

To counter this, Trump is cutting bureaucratic red tape, allowing AI companies to construct their own power plants, potentially including nuclear facilities, to meet the energy needs of AI server farms. Glenn was thrilled to learn these plants could also serve as utilities, supplying excess power to homes and businesses. Trump is determined to ensure America remains the global leader in AI and energy.

Liberation Day Shakeup

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Glenn drew a parallel between Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs and the historical post-World War II Liberation Day. Trump confirmed the analogy, explaining that his policy aims to dismantle an outdated global economic order established to rebuild Europe and Asia after the wars of the 20th century. While beneficial decades ago, this system now disadvantages the U.S. through job outsourcing, unfair trade deals, and disproportionate NATO contributions.

Trump stressed that America’s economic survival is at stake. Without swift action, the U.S. risks collapse, potentially dragging the West down with it. He views his presidency as a critical opportunity to reverse this decline.

Trouble in Europe

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

When Glenn pressed Trump on his tariff strategy and negotiations with Europe, Trump delivered a powerful statement: “I don’t have to negotiate.” Despite America’s challenges, it remains the world’s leading economy with the wealthiest consumer base, making it an indispensable trading partner for Europe. Trump wants to make equitable deals and is willing to negotiate with European leaders out of respect and desire for shared prosperity, he knows that they are dependent on U.S. dollars to keep the lights on.

Trump makes an analogy, comparing America to a big store. If Europe wants to shop at the store, they are going to have to pay an honest price. Or go home empty-handed.

Need for Peace

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Trump emphasized the need to end America’s involvement in endless wars, which have cost countless lives and billions of dollars without a clear purpose. He highlighted the staggering losses in Ukraine, where thousands of soldiers die weekly. Trump is committed to ending the conflict but noted that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has been a challenging partner, constantly demanding more U.S. support.

The ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East are unsustainable, and America’s excessive involvement has prolonged these conflicts, leading to further casualties. Trump aims to extricate the U.S. from these entanglements.

PHOTOS: Inside Glenn's private White House tour

Image courtesy of the White House

In honor of Trump's 100th day in office, Glenn was invited to the White House for an exclusive interview with the President.

Naturally, Glenn's visit wasn't solely confined to the interview, and before long, Glenn and Trump were strolling through the majestic halls of the White House, trading interesting historical anecdotes while touring the iconic home. Glenn was blown away by the renovations that Trump and his team have made to the presidential residence and enthralled by the history that practically oozed out of the gleaming walls.

Want to join Glenn on this magical tour? Fortunately, Trump's gracious White House staff was kind enough to provide Glenn with photos of his journey through the historic residence so that he might share the experience with you.

So join Glenn for a stroll through 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with the photo gallery below:

The Oval Office

Image courtesy of the White House

The Roosevelt Room

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The White House

Image courtesy of the White House

Trump branded a tyrant, but did Obama outdo him on deportations?

Genaro Molina / Contributor | Getty Images

MSNBC and CNN want you to think the president is a new Hitler launching another Holocaust. But the actual deportation numbers are nowhere near what they claim.

Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews, in an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta, compared Trump’s immigration policies to Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust. He claimed that Hitler didn’t bother with German law — he just hauled people off to death camps in Poland and Hungary. Apparently, that’s what Trump is doing now by deporting MS-13 gang members to El Salvador.

Symone Sanders took it a step further. The MSNBC host suggested that deporting gang-affiliated noncitizens is simply the first step toward deporting black Americans. I’ll wait while you try to do that math.

The debate is about control — weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent.

Media mouthpieces like Sanders and Matthews are just the latest examples of the left’s Pavlovian tribalism when it comes to Trump and immigration. Just say the word “Trump,” and people froth at the mouth before they even hear the sentence. While the media cries “Hitler,” the numbers say otherwise. And numbers don’t lie — the narrative does.

Numbers don’t lie

The real “deporter in chief” isn’t Trump. It was President Bill Clinton, who sent back 12.3 million people during his presidency — 11.4 million returns and nearly 900,000 formal removals. President George W. Bush, likewise, presided over 10.3 million deportations — 8.3 million returns and two million removals. Even President Barack Obama, the progressive darling, oversaw 5.5 million deportations, including more than three million formal removals.

So how does Donald Trump stack up? Between 2017 and 2021, Trump deported somewhere between 1.5 million and two million people — dramatically fewer than Obama, Bush, or Clinton. In his current term so far, Trump has deported between 100,000 and 138,000 people. Yes, that’s assertive for a first term — but it's still fewer than Biden was deporting toward the end of his presidency.

The numbers simply don’t support the hysteria.

Who's the “dictator” here? Trump is deporting fewer people, with more legal oversight, and still being compared to history’s most reviled tyrant. Apparently, sending MS-13 gang members — violent criminals — back to their country of origin is now equivalent to genocide.

It’s not about immigration

This debate stopped being about immigration a long time ago. It’s now about control — about weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent. It’s about turning Donald Trump into the villain of every story, facts be damned.

If the numbers mattered, we’d be having a very different national conversation. We’d be asking why Bill Clinton deported six times as many people as Trump and never got labeled a fascist. We’d be questioning why Barack Obama’s record-setting removals didn’t spark cries of ethnic cleansing. And we’d be wondering why Trump, whose enforcement was relatively modest by comparison, triggered lawsuits, media hysteria, and endless Nazi analogies.

But facts don’t drive this narrative. The villain does. And in this script, Trump plays the villain — even when he does far less than the so-called heroes who came before him.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Can Trump stop the blackouts that threaten America's future?

Allan Tannenbaum / Contributor | Getty Images

If America wants to remain a global leader in the coming decades, we need more energy fast.

It's no secret that Glenn is an advocate for the safe and ethical use of AI, not because he wants it, but because he knows it’s coming whether we like it or not. Our only option is to shape AI on our terms, not those of our adversaries. America has to win the AI Race if we want to maintain our stability and security, and to do that, we need more energy.

AI demands dozens—if not hundreds—of new server farms, each requiring vast amounts of electricity. The problem is, America lacks the power plants to generate the required electricity, nor do we have a power grid capable of handling the added load. We must overcome these hurdles quickly to outpace China and other foreign competitors.

Outdated Power Grid

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Our power grid is ancient, slowly buckling under the stress of our modern machines. AAI’s energy demands could collapse it without a major upgrade. The last significant overhaul occurred under FDR nearly a century ago, when he connected rural America to electricity. Since then, we’ve patched the system piecemeal, but it’s still the same grid from the 1930s. Over 70 percent of the powerlines are 30 years old or older, and circuit breakers and other vital components are in similar condition. Most people wouldn't trust a dishwasher that was 30 years old, and yet much of our grid relies on technology from the era of VHS tapes.

Upgrading the grid would prevent cascading failures, rolling blackouts, and even EMP attacks. It would also enable new AI server farms while ensuring reliable power for all.

A Need for Energy

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Earlier this month, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt appeared before Congress as part of an AI panel and claimed that by 2030, the U.S. will need to add 96 gigawatts to our national power production to meet AI-driven demand. While some experts question this figure, the message is clear: We must rapidly expand power production. But where will this energy come from?

As much as eco nuts would love to power the world with sunshine and rainbows, we need a much more reliable and significantly more efficient power source if we want to meet our electricity goals. Nuclear power—efficient, powerful, and clean—is the answer. It’s time to shed outdated fears of atomic energy and embrace the superior electricity source. Building and maintaining new nuclear plants, along with upgraded infrastructure, would create thousands of high-paying American jobs. Nuclear energy will fuel AI, boost the economy, and modernize America’s decaying infrastructure.

A Bold Step into the Future

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This is President Trump’s chance to leave a historic mark on America, restoring our role as global leaders and innovators. Just as FDR’s power grid and plants made America the dominant force of the 20th century, Trump could upgrade our infrastructure to secure dominance in the 21st century. Visionary leadership must cut red tape and spark excitement in the industry. This is how Trump can make America great again.